We Came, We Raced, We Broke!

It’s the classic story in motorsports. We had a fast car that last year finished Second overall and promised to be much quicker this year. But that means little when you break in the first lap of the first of four events, ending our shot until next year. That’s racing.

The Hotchkis Shootout invites any magazine or media staffer to Buttonwillow where they can duke it out with the other magazines for a year’s worth of bragging rights. Inaugurated last year, John Hotchkis enlisted Baer, Centerforce, Flowmaster, Yokohama, Magnacharger, Red Line, Optima, Axis wheels, and a few others to co-sponsor this year’s Media Shootout day. The idea was to pit run-whatcha-brung street-legal cars against each other in a four-tiered contest. The race consisted of a 600-foot slalom, a quarter-mile drag race, a 60-to-0 braking flog, followed by hot laps on Buttonwillow’s road course.

Last year, we entered my ’65 Chevelle powered by a 420ci Lingenfelter-built small-block Chevy that did exceptionally well. We won both the dragstrip and 60-to-0 brake contests and finished Fourth overall on the road course. We did poorly on the slalom-it’s still our worst event. On the first practice lap with the car handling much better through the cones, the right rear suspension banged twice just as we cleared the final gate and then the right rear locked up. A post-mortem revealed the axle had sheared off right at the flange, mangling some brake parts and cutting the Kumho tire.

After the track sent out its tow truck to cart away the wreckage, Bryan Wilson from Centerforce offered to let us drive the company’s 2000 Corvette that he had brought out initially as a display vehicle. The Vette is equipped with a complete Magnuson supercharged LS1 engine, along with a ton of parts from RK Sport, Weld wheels, Yokohama 18- and 20-inch tires, and of course, a Centerforce clutch.

We jumped in the Corvette and just managed to get back to the slalom course in time to run, followed quickly by the dragstrip and braking runs. With zero seat time, we drove the car cautiously since both timed runs on all three venues are averaged requiring both runs to be clean. Unfortunately, we learned that our fastest time on the slalom was on the practice run and not for time! We did better in the quarter with more consistent runs and even pulled down a short 111-foot stopping distance on the braking test by literally trying to bend the brake pedal with our right foot. The dragstrip revealed that the new combination still needed some tuning since the Magnuson blower is capable of much more power than what the Corvette delivered.

After lunch, Hotchkis split the field into two 15-minute sessions for practice. The Vette felt strong, but after four laps it succumbed to overheating problems. A subsequent underhood inspection revealed the accessory/blower drivebelt was about to let go. This is partly because of a slight misalignment problem that was easily rectified.

So in a matter of a couple of hours, your scribe had managed to kill two cars and had officially dropped out of the race twice! Additional attrition from several cars left the door open for a Nissan 350Z and a couple other imports to run some relatively quick laps on the road course, but substantially slower than what took the top spots on the road course in 2003.

Overall, the event was still fun even if we broke on the first lap! We’re already planning on a full-out assault on the Hotchkis event for next year with stronger Strange axles, less weight, and perhaps even fresh paint to make our barge look a little better. A quick count of vehicles revealed an even split of imports to domestics, but the imports clearly held the upper hand. It’s obvious we need to make a musclecar statement. The first two Hotchkis winners have been imports, and we need to show them that our old-school musclecars can play in this arena, too!

StandingsThe most important point to get out of this is how dominant the import cars were in this event. Mark Takahashi wheeled the best rear-wheel-drive stock machine, but save for that effort, the domestics did not fare well. Next year, we clearly need to improve the domestic machine participation to keep these import guys out of the top three spots!

Mustang TimesThe most populous body style at the Hotchkis Media Day was the late-model Mustang with three cars competing. Last year, Chevy High Performance Art Director Mark Takahashi wheeled his ’97 Mustang Cobra convertible, but was hampered by stock tires, faded brakes, a lame suspension, and dead shocks. This year, he returned with a compete Hotchkis suspension upgrade (see “Charming the Snake,” Jan. ’03, pg. 46) along with an excellent set of Koni shocks and a full set of Kumho Victoracer 710 gumball tires.

While these changes didn’t do much to improve his times on the dragstrip (average of 14.76/97.67 mph), the combination of chassis and tires improved his slalom lap average speed from 58.52 mph last year to 60.40 mph this year. In the braking contest, Mark almost took home the top spot with a fantastic 101-foot stopping distance that equated to a two-lap average of 103 feet versus last year’s 124.73-foot average. That can be attributed mainly to those incredibly sticky Kumhos.

Event

Driver

Car

Slalom Winner:

Scott Tsuneishi

Nissan 350Z

11/44-Mile Winner:

Pablo Mazlumian

Toyota Supra

Braking Winner:

Scott Tsuneishi

Nissan 350Z

Road Course Winner:

Jason Jackman

Audi A4

Overall Winner:

Scott Tsuneishi

Nissan 350Z

On the road course, Mark dropped his two-lap average from last year’s 2:25.26 to a much quicker 2:20.70 time-a solid 5-second-per-lap improvement, which is huge considering the rest of the car is stock and a ragtop to boot. All this really points out how well an underpowered car with a decent suspension and a good driver can do in events like this.

Vette AdventuresCenterforce’s Corvette deserves more than just a passing mention. The car is spectacular with its RK Sport body kit, lamp blackouts, and carbon-fiber hood. RK Sport also supplied the air intake system using a K&N filter, the custom seats, carbon-fiber interior, and white gauge overlay in the instrument panel.

Weld Racing supplied the 18×10.5-inch front and 20×10.5-inch rear wheels mounting a set of 275/35ZR18 front and 285/30ZR20 rear Yokohama AVS Sport tires that really were glued to the track.

The big news is the hot stuff under the hood. Magnuson supplied the supercharger for the 5.7L LS1, while our pal Steve Cole at TTS Power Systems bolted on the stainless steel headers. All this power is routed through a Centerforce DFX prototype clutch that worked flawlessly along with a B&M Ripper shifter for the six-speed transaxle drivetrain. Optima supplied the electrical power. Finally, Baer EradiSpeed rotors applied the whoa power.

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